Oh god its everywhere, everywhere! We are drowning in mud, I cant keep anything clean as the minuet you go outside to check the chickens for eggs or get wood from the log store your covered again.

It started a few weeks ago with our builders digging a big hole, which steadily got deeper and deeper, currently the hole is around 8 feet deep which was slightly more than we had accounted for, turns out they had to go down deeper to find solid ground and then get it level.

That was day one when it wasnt too deep, then day two they really went nuts...

Then much to our neighbours delight came the concrete lorries.

This was the first layer with the damp proof membrane in, they where then all set to pour the second layer when everyone realised that the retaining wall to keep all that hill (the one with the houses on) back might need to be slightly more of a serious structural affair then original anticipated. This has left us waiting for most of last week for the very nice structural engineer to come out and advise on how me make everything strong enough to stop the hill sliding down and ending up inside the garage!

While the experts where head scratching Rich and I got on with digging the trench for the electrical cable, as yet another cost saving exercise we decided to dig this ourselves as we couldn't afford the cost of a labourer to spend a week doing it. The trench has to be 60cm deep to pass regs which makes is about mid thigh height on me...never, ever again.

Of all the many shitty jobs I've had to do on houses over the years this has to have been one of the most rubbish (Rich disagrees, he thinks rewiring the house was worse...I couldn't possibly comment as I ran away to a beach in Turkey with my Mum that time!). The builders of this 300 year old cottages just dumped all the spoil and stone off cuts in what would become the gardens, so we had endless fun digging through 60 cm of compacted stone and clay, we found tones of broken pottery, animal bones and old sewers, general in the rain and wind.

So my lovely garden no longer exists, I how just have a variety of mud mounds. The added thrill of a 60 cm drop next to our pretty narrow path had Rich slightly worried about the postie and milkman so we had to go buy site safety tape as hes worried someone will fall in, break an ankle and sue us. The cat has repeatably fallen in but so far not taken legal action...I can only assume because of the tape!

Hopefully work will commence again this week with the second layer of concrete and the electrician laying the cables in the trench so we can fill it all back in.

So not much else has happened as I now only have enough space in my brain for this but I did get a lovely parcel of fabric from Rich's auntie Lesley in Australia which should help me get my massive patchwork door curtain finally finished off.

Also I got these plates in our local charity shop a few weeks ago, they are my new favourite, every meal taste better eaten off a psychedelic cow.

I also signed up with Abel and Cole for their British Veg Box, I figured as we have concreted a third of our property I might struggle to find enough space to grow potatoes so now they will instead be delivery every few weeks in a nice box by a very cheerful delivery driver who is apparently 'looking forward to seeing your project develop', yep me too!

So I've been a bit quiet on here for a few months, mostly because Rich and I have been tied up with planning and organising our next big house project. We had up until last week an old 1950s garage at the bottom of our garden nearest our access lane, it been slowly falling apart since we bought the house over 6 years ago, the plan has always been to knock it down and try to replace it with something. End of last summer we submitted planning and after an agonising wait finally got it! So heres the render we submitted...

Its a simple long building pretty much like our neighbour has, is going to contain a large workshop for Rich and an art studio in the back for us to use, meaning we can move our office out of the house but still be able to work from home.

So last week was spent 3 days taking the old garage down, which meant fun with a kango hammer!

Our builders are due to start tomorrow and hoping to get the base finished by next week. We are really excited to finally get this project started, it feels like it been a really long time coming, Rich in particular has put in a huge number of hours so far, he did all the plans himself which saved us a lot but was quite a big learning curve!

So most of this year will revolve around getting this building up and fitted out, as ever we are on a tight budget so will be look at how we can fit both spaces out for as little as possible but still keeping them looking good. We will also be trying to make as much use as possible of any waste, we saved three quarters of the concrete blocks from the old garage to reuse as a retaining wall which Rich will build. We saved all the old wood that came from the old garage, the door frame, lintel and roof timbers, these have all been cut up for our log burner, we'll also be saving any waste wood including pallets from landfill once the build starts. In the long term we have some ideas about fitting this building out with solar panels but that might have to wait a few years!

As part of hooking the garage up to the house electrics we also have the pleasure of having to dig a deep trench for the cable all the way from the house down to the garage, all 50 meters of it! Part of the prep for this has meant removing part of our box hedge up by the house something I've been considering for a while anyway as it will gives us more room on our little patio.

Once the plants are moved we can open up the trench, although our local badger has already made a start by digging some pretty big holes in this since this pic was taken!

So some more back breaking days ahead but hopefully it will all be worth it in the end! Exciting times!